Runway revisited

Runway revisited

Tuesday 27 March 2012 16.00 EDT
First published on Tuesday 27 March 2012 16.00 EDT

Since they lost the argument in the last general election and a consensus was established across all political parties against a third runway at Heathrow, BAA and the aviation industry have mounted a vastly expensive lobbying campaign to reverse this decision (Tories may be on the final approach into a U-turn, 26 March). Nothing has changed to justify any party reneging on its commitment. The threat of a dramatic increase in air and noise pollution remains the same; 10,000 of my constituents would still have their homes rendered unlivable and at least 2 million Londoners would suffer from large-scale noise disturbance. The threat of climate change has not gone away and European carbon emissions trading had already been taken into account.

The only change has been the revelation that companies have been able to buy access to ministers with the opportunity to influence policy. I am calling for the publication of all contacts between the aviation industry and ministers, civil servants and party officials at all levels. When politicians can be bought and government policies are put up for sale, it is left to the people themselves to assert their right to restore democracy. So I give the government this warning. If it seeks to ride roughshod over the democratic wishes of our people on this issue, we will call up the largest environmental direct action campaign this country has seen. It won't just be a campaign about a runway it will be a campaign to reclaim democracy and demand honest politics.John McDonnell MPLab, Hayes and Harlington